SPACE RACE CHAMPIONSHIP – a unique, out-of-this-world, no-holds-barred sci-fi adventure for Young Adults. Good old-fashioned Formula One of the 90’s BUT IN SPACE! – BOOK CLUB. Chapter 1 – New Competitors “And it’s that season again where we get hyped for the biggest event of the year. The official host of the season is back, so for the next four months of this year you will have me – Pyra Summers – talking you over the Championship and the rumours, stats, and official news that makes itself known. And since I’m back on the airwaves, you can be sure that first piece of news you all look forward to will be coming sometime this week.” Pyra Summers of Radio Racer [15/2-0085] Two spacecraft waited together at the starting line within the cruiser’s hangar bay. The improvised line was nothing more than two mini cruisers parked either side of the two ‘craft. The first ‘craft was a Galaxy model – designation Y/26t. Oblong in shape, it had a rear rectangular section that fit around the control cabin’s viewshield – which was also oblong in shape. The other ‘craft was a Rotablade – designation G/0ld5n. A rectangular shape with rounded corners, it had a tubular rotating blade set either side that were as long as the ‘craft itself. These were auto-defence weaponry emplacements, but were disabled for the moment. This ‘craft also had an oblong shaped viewshield. The two mini cruisers flashed their lights, and the pilots of the ‘craft lifted them up and shot out of the hangar. There was a lot of clutter that the two racers dodged around – the pilot of the Rotablade doing better than that of the Galaxy. Numerous lights marked the way for the racers, and as the ‘craft sped past the lights changed colour. The Rotablade was in danger of smashing straight into the hulk of a damaged mini cruiser, but a quick drop was all that was needed to avoid it. There was the issue of more debris beyond it, but the Rotablade smashed through all of it without a care in the world. When the Galaxy hit this point, it rose above instead of going below, and seemed content to stay above most of the debris. It was forced back into the debris field when one of the sections of a cruiser floated into its path. It tried to dodge around the debris instead of going through it, which caused it to lose some speed. The distance between the two ‘craft had increased. The Rotablade was now within the outer limits of an asteroid field, effortlessly flying through them. After passing a few more, it was out of the field and hugging the plating of a cruiser as it travelled down the length of it. The next light indicated the start of a structure that the racers needed to travel through. It was large, looking as though it was a cruiser in the process of being built. Or at least had been, as it looked abandoned considering the angle of it. The Rotablade flew straight in, being completely aware of the girders that made up the structure. Despite that awareness, it didn’t stop the ‘craft from clipping one of them. The pilot was quick to react and saved it from colliding into a second. The Galaxy had now opened up in speed, having hit the asteroid field. It made it through without hitting any, but there had been a few close calls. Then it was flying the length of the cruiser. The Galaxy had made sure to keep a larger gap between the two than the Rotablade had. When it reached the structure, it slowed down to enter, and kept that speed while traversing through. The Rotablade was almost back to the starting cruiser, following the last few lights that created a winding path back to the hangar it had first started at. It was still paying no mind to the debris scattered around, and was able to bank and turn hard to avoid larger obstacles quickly. It slowed down to enter the hangar at the same time the Galaxy exited the structure of the abandoned cruiser. It took about a minute more for the Galaxy to follow the path and enter the cruiser to land as well. When both had landed, a results screen appeared with the time both had taken to complete the course. “And it’s a victory for the current champion!” a voice rang out. The screens of light dispersed, revealing two boys sitting on chairs with a controller in hand. “Will the current champion be beaten sometime soon?” the other of the two stated. “Tune in next time when we race in about… Five minutes?” “The current champion will not be beaten,” Tom Hughs said. “Not if the competition refuse to push their ‘craft to the max.” “I just don’t feel I can react fast enough,” Lee Johnson responded. “If you are used to the controls and the way something feels, you should be able to react no matter what speed you’re going.” “And I always try.” Lee looked around the room, picturing the race that had just happened. Then he looked back further to the last time he had pushed to near the max. It hadn’t ended well for him. The game was a tie-in to the most popular event of the world they lived. One which happened once every five years. As it turned out, this was the year in which the next was to happen. Lee hadn’t mentioned anything about it yet, but the news had confirmed the selection of the entrants for this year had happened. Within a week, those names would be revealed, and the hype for the event would begin fully. “So, are we getting to a new race?” Tom asked. “Yeah, sure,” Lee replied. “But wouldn’t it be great to be entered into the event for real?” “As much fun as it would be, what chance do we stand without
A story of ordinary lives against a backdrop of cosmic stakes, Duncan Fraser’s captivating and unique speculative fiction debut Terrarium Hostel explores themes of connection, belonging, and self-discovery. Day 1 – Keeping a Diary It was Octave one night in The Moscow Arms who told me about an article he saw in the paper about writing to aliens. I laughed at first but when he explained that this thing called the Sol Project was a deadly serious scientific enterprise in which ordinary people had been invited to participate, I became intrigued and sent off for an entry form. The Pinkland Space Agency is going to beam powerful radio signals towards a star about 35 light years away in an attempt to make contact with an alien civilisation they think is there. The signals will contain many different kinds of communications. There will be greetings and messages of peace from our insincere politicians and summaries of our knowledge from boffins in various fields. But also included will be diaries from average Joes like myself in order to give the aliens as wide an appreciation as possible of life in this neck of the galaxy. I received the entry form a couple of weeks ago and ever since then Octave has kept asking me if I have started the diary. So I bought a large notebook and today I begin writing in my diary for the first time. I have asked him why he wasn’t also going to do it, since he is so enthusiastic about me doing it. ‘My diary would never be accepted,’ he said. ‘Why not?’ I said. ‘The judges will all be Darlingtons,’ said Octave. ‘What’s that?’ I said. ‘Darlingtons?’ said Octave. ‘Culture vultures. Precious, self-important, loose-living bohemians. You know, arty-farties. Those kind of people wouldn’t consider a diary from someone like me for one second, no matter how good it was.’ ‘How do you know that?’ ‘Just take it from me,’ said Octave, ‘I just know. The kind of people who judge literary competitions are always Darlingtons.’ I had never heard of the term. Must be a Terrarium word. ‘And they are all absolutely stupid,’ Octave added. ‘Total dum-dums. They wouldn’t understand anything I wrote.’ ‘So why do you think my diary will be accepted but yours will be rejected?’ ‘Because you are a fresh-faced, innocent idealist,’ said Octave. ‘They like people like you.’ There is a great expectation that the messages will be understood because apparently the radio signals will also contain sophisticated translation instructions which will, if you have information systems that are compatible, enable you, my dear alien reader, to read the messages in your own idiomatic language and render my unearthly existence in terms that will appear bizarrely familiar to that of your own species. For example, whenever I mention my home star, I will write it as the name I know it as but it will appear in your text as Zeta Herculis B, which is your name for it. Obviously, I don’t call it that and have no idea what you call it. But that is how it will appear in the translation. Sometimes what you read will be a surprisingly accurate description of my reality. At other times though it will be an approximation or a symbolic interpretation of what my life is actually like. But I think the idea is to always make it consistent with a correlate in your world while remaining true to the spirit of my world. I will probably sound more articulate than I actually am but the software will always try and render an accurate representation of what I am saying and strike an emotionally faithful tone. The best analogues will always be used. For example, there is an intelligent aquatic creature in the oceans of our home planet that we call a …well, frankly, a vocalisation that is unlikely to be reproducible in your language … but which will be translated as a dolphin because that is the closest counterpart in your world. (If that last sentence appears even vaguely intelligible to you, I will be amazed because I don’t know if you have any intelligent aquatic creatures in your oceans. Do you even have oceans?) I also might mention at some point that I play a musical instrument. I don’t know how this will be rendered. Do you guys even have music? Even if you do, what are the chances of you having anything like the thing I play? Pretty remote, I would say. But the instrument I play will be described in terms that you can understand – so I play a guitar. Neither of us will know how good a translation that will be. But who knows? Your instruments and our instruments may be remarkably similar. My civilisation has made great advances recently in communications and many people are calling this translation technology the greatest thing we have ever achieved. If you are reading and understanding this, my dear alien reader, then I guess they might be right. I am sure it will at least be better than the old indecipherable hieroglyphics and mind-bending mathematical brainteasers that you poor aliens used to get from us. There is still a possibility though of some very bad errors. The artificial intelligence of the translation technology may find a suitable analogue in your world but not believe it and retranslate it into something preposterous to your ears. Apparently this has happened very occasionally in tests. So if you read the odd weird or unintentionally funny thing, put it down to the stupidity of artificial intelligence. But it’s not my job to explain the technical side. I don’t understand it anyway. My job is to describe my life. All the relevant explanations will be in the Space Agency’s ‘covering letter’, as it were. What they told me in the guidelines is to write as if the reader is completely familiar with my world. I am not to attempt explanations. Personally, I don’t
A journey through the centuries on the way to a threatened planet, Emily Chance’s astonishing visionary science fiction novel Hermes both reflects and redefines the history of our own world. The brilliant-white wheel revolved majestically through the emptiness of space, a glorious contrast to the blackness it was passing through. The station looked fully functional, its antennae spun around, searching out the heavens, and the docked vehicle appeared to be ready to journey into the deep, but the truth was quite different, this glorious testament to earlier achievements had been abandoned long ago. Onboard only one system was active, the scanner; and it was scanning the dead planet below. The scan had been triggered by the intelligence that, in the absence of the crew, now controlled the station, a keen, resourceful, intelligence, that had been crafted with noble motives; to build a space vehicle that would take its creator to the stars. Its mission, now, entirely different, was to scan for signs of life below, but there was nothing. The intelligence adjusted the station’s orbit over the planet. Paradoxically, the decision to initiate the manoeuvre was driven by an emotion, hope, not that there was much. The skies were toxic, electrical storms rent the sulphurous carbon dioxide-infested clouds. As the station continued its journey, the intelligence updated the log, written in the beautiful script of the nation of storytellers who, one hundred years ago, had commissioned its construction. However, for any future reader, it would be the last fifty years entries that they would be rivetted by; the story of the planet’s unremitting decay, of the creeping destruction of all life, overseen by the dominant species of the planet. One way and another, everything had the life choked out of it, and no attempt had been made to stop it from happening. However, there was to be one more act in this tragic drama, the scan’s beacon began to glow and resonate, four hundred and ten kilometres below, something was moving. *** He crawled up the dune on all fours. He was covered from the searing heat of the sun in tattered and torn remnants of what had once been a state-of-the-art environmental suit. The real problem now, though, was breathing. The atmosphere was so thin it felt like he was inhaling dust. He stopped to thump his chest and coughed. Could he remember a time when breathing was easy, when you could inhale cool mountain air and gather energy from it? Adam had moved up into the mountains of the South Island twenty years ago when the food riots had reached them. The riots had been going on across the rest of the world for many years, but his homeland, far off the beaten track, had managed to beat off any invaders and sustain itself. Eventually though, hundreds of thousands had arrived, overwhelming the local navy, and managed to make landfall. They were desperate, starving and war had quickly broken out. Well, not war – that sounds like something, coordinated, and organised. This was everyone for themselves and it was ugly. Anarchy had come within days, and he had retreated inland. He knew he could hunt and fish in the lower Alps and sustain himself. But so did others and there had been confrontations, which had led to death. He had survived in this manner for twenty years, isolated from the outside world without news of what was happening beyond the valley. Until now, when the forest fires had begun a few days ago. He knew if he was going to survive, he had to make it to the sea. The journey to the coast had begun with a climb to the head of the valley to spy out the land to the coast. He had brought his infrared binoculars so he could check the city. Even now, after all these years, he was shocked. Buildings were on fire, smoke rising into the sky. Some had collapsed, others were scarred, and external walls had disintegrated, exposing ransacked apartments, restaurants and offices. A story of ruin that global media had followed until it didn’t. There was something else he noticed. An eerie silence; no traffic, no aircraft flying, no movement at all. The wind got up, which was when he sensed something even more defining: the stench of death. It emerged out of bodies lying in the streets, and herds of cattle lying in the fields. A tale of unchecked rampant disease, of the thousand and one ailments of an unhealthy, disease-ridden population. He decided to go North and avoid the city. He only needed to crawl a little further to reach the top of the Dune. On he went, clawing his way to the top. At last, he was there, he scrambled over the top and looked out. It was over. Far above, the intelligence considered the lone figure, looking out across the dried-up ocean seabed. He seemed to falter, then collapse in a heap and finally, he turned over and looked up to the sky. That was it, the last man standing… falling. So, what should the intelligence do? It had been born out of a desire to facilitate but somehow it had at some point grown beyond that. It was now capable of having a point of view, which it could act upon, and most importantly a view shaped by the moral compass of its creator. For a long time, the intelligence considered what to do. The creator had hoped to set out across the heavens to a world, teaming with life, that had been discovered one hundred years ago but had never found the means to do so. Therein lay the answer. They must reach out to the world that the creator had planned to visit. On board the Barnamaj Station the calibrations were made, the data assembled, and a gentle stream of pulses passed out into the heavens. Their plea for help began its forty-light-year odyssey. In response ‘they’ made no judgement; they simply
